Dr. Lee K. Frankel chairman of the American section of the Joint Palestine Survey Commission, enunciated his reasons for declining to make a statement on the reports emanating from Palestine that he will propose the raising of a $50,000,000 loan for Palestine under the aegis of the Jewish Agency.
A release of the Zionist Organization of America quotes Dr. Frankel in an interview which he granted to Henry Montor of the Zionist publicity department.
“Palestine is the most fascinating country under the sun because of its contrasts.” Dr. Frankel stated’
“And you never made the statement that was ascribed to you that you were in favor of raising a $50,000,000 loan for Palestine?” Mr. Montor asked Dr. Frankel.
“It wasn’t derision that greeted my query.” Mr. Montor comments in his interview, “merely tolerance, in resigned recognition of the situation in which Dr. Frankel found himself which carried with it all the attendant exaggerations and misconceptions which he was helpless to prevent. Only a negative nod of the head answered my question, as he swung on his chair in his office in the Metropolitan Tower, and reached for some notes be had made on his trip to Palestine.”
“If I could only convey adequately to everyone concerned how harmful to the best interests of Palestine have been the impressions pro and con which have been broadcasted by every traveler who has returned from a casual stay in Palestine.” Dr. Frankel said. “Statements on the infinite possibilities of Palestine’s economic, agricultural and industrial resources have been as inimical to an actual under-standing and acceleration of the progress of the country as the impressions gathered after a few weeks’ stay that the establishment in Palestine of any tangible Jewish settlement was doomed because of the poverty of the country.”
But this unwillingness to commit himself on the intentions, prospects, and conditions of the report to be presented by the commission of experts in the near future did not dull Dr. Frankels enthusiasm for the idealism which animates the Jewish pioneers in Palestine, the interviewer goes on. He was particularly intrigued by the sight of men and women, college graduates, who toiled in the agricultural colonies, buoyed up by a deep faith in the land which they were cultivating which took itself for granted.
“When I asked one of the women who had just returned from a hard day’s work in the field whether she was happy,” Dr. Frankel said, “she looked at me as though amazed at the question. She didn’t answer ‘yes’ in a spiritless voice, as though trying to stem off the solicitude of a stranger, but almost with a shrug of the shoulder as though she could not conceive of any one’s donbting her patent happiness.”
Palestine–the land of contrasts. The Holy Land, which harbors the extremely orthodox Jews of the Old Jerusalem, who as much as defy the establishment of a national Jewish homeland, and the modern Jews of the new city, who have made pilgrimages from distant countries to be present at the birth of a new Jewish stage. It was this land of contrasts which gripped Dr. Frankel’s imagination, a land in which tradition and change are at odds, where the spirits of two vastly different centuries are in conflict.
“Look at the pious Jews assembled at the Wailing Wall and then get into the new city to see the Jewish boys playing baseball on Saturday. Both are scenes typical and expressive of Jewish idealism.”
Enthusiasm for the work of Hadassah in Palestine, admiration of the Hebrew University, whose work he considers equal to that being done in any American University today, are the only impressions which Dr. Frankel would allow himself. And yet his measured appreciation of what he had seen in Palestine was not indicative of a lack of respect for Jewish achievements in that country.
“What did you notice of the relations between Jews and Arabs?” the interviewer asked.
“I could hardly give an accurate estimate, but it is possible to see a better relation between the two nations. There has grown up a better understanding of what the Jews are trying to do in the country, and an appreciation of their transformation of the land. It is inevitable that after years of seeing an automobile on one side of the road and the camel on the other, both doing the same work, that the Arabs should change their attitude. The fright which the Arabs experienced ten years ago when they heard of the staggering Jewish immigration that was to flood the country has gradually subsided to a better knowledge of the slow infiltration of the Jewish population.
“By this time surely it ought to be taken for granted that there is an idealogy behind our work. Certainly it should be understood that in entering upon the work of reconstructing Jewish Palestine, we would be motivated by ideas which are higher than purely industrial ends,” Dr. Frankel continued. “We would not start operations on the same basis as a non-Jew or a Mohammedan. There is a spiritual aspect to this project which transcends any physical report which may be presented, and though our development of the country be guided by certain scientific principles which have been determined upon after long and trained study we shall always be animated by the aim of the undertaking and not its means.
“We will not be guided by an utter disregard for principles and ideals, otherwise we would never have agreed to cooperate in this venture, and unless this similar ideology is taken for granted, any work which might be attempted could never be capped with success,” he said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
